My 2020 MLK post

And I stand by it. 

And, as my son noted, the same development continues.  That is, when he was young, we began hearing about MLK well before Christmas, and it continued well past Black History Month.  Throughout the rest of the year you could count on hearing MLK quoted or referenced at least once a week in sermons, interviews, speeches and newscasts.  

Now?  The first mention of MLK Day I heard was last Tuesday (apart from the extended weather forecast that had today as MLK Day on the calendar).  I remember as a pastor being in meetings in November when I was asked plans for the day.  Now?  Our priest mentioned him in his homily yesterday, but that's it. I think that's the first time I've heard him mentioned in church since last year. Yet when we came into the church, like most churches I had seen, it wasn't uncommon to hear him reference many times over the year.  I did see a MLK post on some news page last year before the holidays.  Can't remember why, but that was it.

After all, we've all but completely endorsed judging and sizing people up based on race and skin color (think White Privilege).  And since 2020, the Left has made it clear that violence, rather than never being the answer, can be a darn good answer.  So much for the man of peace calling for content of character over skin color.

Yes, there were some attempts in 2020 and 2021 to insist we had the MLK legacy all wrong.  That before he was killed he was warming up to a bit of the old ultra-violence, especially when dealing with America's whiteness problem.  But that seemed to have crashed pretty quickly.  

Now, it's the odd mention every few months give or take. And for a week or so, we roll out the MLK day focus, hit it hard on the day itself (the message today apparently being that MLK would be right with the anti-ICE protesters), and then that's that.  We'll see. But if this year is anything like the last several, this too shall pass and pass quickly.  

BTW, this is not an indictment on the man himself. It's an indictment on a nation that has played this false for decades.  It's just so apparent when you see how MLK has been manipulated to achieve ends it's unlikely MLK ever imagined. 

How to sound leftist in the 21st Century

Get hold of old speeches and publications from Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s.  Scratch out the words 'Jew' and 'Jewish' and replace them with 'White' and 'Whiteness'.  Then you can be invited to any hipster leftwing party.   Or, apparently, get a cushy job at one of our fine modern institutions of higher learning. 

Thus.  Yep.  It's not even trying to act with a wink and a nod.  It literally speaks of the plague of whiteness in ways reminiscent of the warnings against the corruption of Jewishness in Nazi Germany.  From the university page: 

Racism is an epidemic (CDC, 2021) that can also be considered a pandemic given its large cross-national proportion and spread (APA, 2020). However, there is another pandemic lurking behind and driving the racism pandemic – the Whiteness Pandemic. Whiteness refers to culture not biology: the centuries-old culture of Whiteness features colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility, which are all covert expressions of racism common in the United States. Naming the Whiteness Pandemic shifts our gaze from the victims and effects of racism onto the systems that perpetrate and perpetuate racism, starting with the family system. At birth, young children growing up in White families begin to be socialized into the culture of Whiteness, making the family system one of the most powerful systems involved in systemic racism.

Compare: 

The Jew caused our misery and lives from it today. That is why we nationalists and socialists oppose the Jews. The Jew has corrupted our race, soiled our morals, undermined our values, and broken our strength. He is the reason we today are the pariah of the whole world. As long as we were German, he was a leper among us. When we forgot our German nature, he triumphed over us and our future.

I'll let you guess who said that last one.

Sure, people will point out that many (though notice not all) on that university page are white.  White professionals happily ensconced in their own careers it should be noted.  I've noticed that many white liberals who have no problem demanding we correct the unfairness of white privilege are, themselves, quite privileged.  And while they might bemoan the unfair advantage they have in life owing to their whiteness, it never seems to lead them to relinquish those careers and go flip burgers so a minority could be hired instead.   

Why did white Americans flock to Trump and the GOP last election?  Why did young white Americans, that age group historically tending to swing left of center, swing to the right?  Because the white American liberals who look like them with six figure salaries seem hellbent on making sure those white American liberals are the last people who look like them who will be able to have six figure salaries.  That's why. 

Proxy Martyrdom in a nutshell, and apparently a staple for white liberalism

You wouldn't think this needs to be said

Only if you aren't a student of human history.  A fellow who pops up in my feed every now and then, who seems to be about 3 or 4 hits to 1 miss, points out what should be obvious: Why you should judge people as individuals, not races.  

Of course societies and nations and empires, being made up of people, suffer that same tendency we all suffer as people.  That is, it's easier to descend into vice than to ascend to virtue.  Let's face it, when was the last time anyone said, "You know, all my life I wanted to be a lazy couch potato, but I just couldn't overcome the temptation to eat right and exercise."  Vice and bad and unhealthy are easier than virtue and good and healthy. Let's be honest.

Which is why civilizations and cultures, being made up of people, tend to suffer the same thing.  Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, freedom, equality and fraternity, of the people and by the people are tough.  Tyranny, oppression, conquest, bigotry and imperialism are easier.  As we're seeing now.  

Even now, we have journalists informing us that freedom of speech can be dangerous and sometimes we need a little of the old government censorship (kudos for that one 60 Minutes).  Barry Lynn once told Anderson Cooper in 2005 that the First Amendment clearly didn't mean religions that promote discrimination and prejudice (that is, that disagree with him).  And since BLM we've been informed that it's time to stop judging based on content of character and get back to judging based on the color of one's skin or any one of a thousand other demographic identities.  With the caveat, as Deacon Greydanus pointed out, that saying JD Vance is white has nothing to do with him being white.  It being postmodernity with its post-reality dogmas.  

At the end of the day, that post-WWII PTSD that the world slipped into in which we decided everything before must have been flawed and we were now going to get it right, has passed. Many of those lofty ideals of total and complete tolerance, respect, openness, freedom of expression, and most of all never judging based on group identity or accident of birth are dead Jim.  As any student of history should be able to predict.  If they ever really lived. 

The unfolding evil of the Left

Is best demonstrated by its almost knee jerk tendency to assume malice in anyone who strives for what common sense once said was good.  Here, NPR swoops in to suggest the sudden concern over our dangerously low birthrates could be - you guessed it - thinly veiled white nationalist white supremacy racist Naziism.  Because of course.  Apparently anyone thinking more babies are good must be motivated by wickedness.  Which speaks volumes about the NPR mentality, if you think on it. 

As a bonus, I love how the above artwork displayed in the piece has a white family, which obviously is suppose to elicit panic and visions of Nuremberg rallies on the part of the reader.  The idea that a white family is supposed to suggest something evil purely by being a white family is hilariously demonic.  But it shows how far the Left has come in its apparent conclusion that the only problem with the Nazis was that they race hated and mass exterminated all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.  Remember kids, if you ever and only reference an ethnic group, skin color, or other demographic based on accident of birth purely in negative, accusatory or pejorative ways, then you're a racist. 

Naturally the content of the article is of no importance.  It's the usual building a false molehill by ignoring a mountain of inconvenient facts and suffering and human experiences. In other words, contemporary journalism.   I seriously doubt  that science can possibly invent an instrument able to gauge the utter worthlessness of the modern media. 

The reason I don't do Juneteenth

I've only heard him mentioned once this year

Is different from why I never got into MLK Day.  I didn't care for MLK Day because, to me, MLK just became discount Jesus for a nation afraid to invoke Jesus for fear of being called names.  As opposed to whatever official reasons, that was my guess.  And that is why I imagined it wouldn't last forever. 

Since 2020, MLK day hasn't been what it used to be.  When my sons were in public school, they began hyping MLK before the Winter Break that happened at the end of December.  Then into January it was MLK all the way.  That focus would continue through Black History Month.  There were also ample other times in the year to focus on MLK and America's racist identity: Colonial era, the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Segregation and Jim Crow in the 20th Century. 

Of course it wasn't just school.  In my ministry days, whenever I heard other pastors preach, it was common to hear them quote or somehow invoke MLK.  Scarcely did a sermon or a lecture or speech pass without at least one mention.  Sometimes he would be the exclusive focus or reference, even when Jesus barely got a dashed off mention.  News reports, college and high school lectures, editorials, documentaries, news interviews on television - you couldn't go three days without hearing of MLK or at least the broader Civil Rights Movement to which he was attached. 

Since 2020, however, that has passed.  There was an attempt to insist we had the whole MLK legacy wrong.  Turns out MLK thought nothing of dividing people into skin color and judging accordingly.  And not a few posts and editorials said MLK was warming to the whole ultraviolence approach to justice.  Which prompted my sons to rename him MLK-Ninja Warrior.  So singing the praises of the Man of Peace isn't as easy now that we realize violence can be a wonderful answer and it is about judging based on skin color. Which is likely why I haven't heard of him for weeks, if not longer.  

Now it's Juneteenth. And in this case you won't see me paying attention to it because, like Critical Race Theory, I have yet to hear a straight answer regarding what it's all about: 

1. A holiday for the black community about black culture and black only and everything, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

2. A holiday for everyone, but whites and others are merely invited, the planning and focus being on blacks in America and blacks in America alone, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

3. A holiday commemorating the historical event of freeing the last slaves in America which should become our real independence day, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

4. A holiday that is important because it was made by blacks alone, and the federal government merely put a stamp of approval, rather than coming up with it itself.  Again, with a fair dash of America's racist past

4. A holiday commemorating the government sending the US army to Texas to inform the slaves that they were free, being the last primary holdout of enslaved African Americans, that should be for all people. 

Until we get an executive decision on what it's actually about, I'll hold off.  Especially since I'm already seeing more and more black Americans preferring a combo of #2 and #3, with a dash of #4.  In one of our local news FB pages, several jumped into the comments to all but say it's about black everything and July 4th is dead to them.  My attempts to explain that without July 4th you don' t have Juneteenth  went about as far as you'd expect.

So nope.  Right now, my gut feeling is that its main purpose is to 1) perpetually keep the sins of America alive as yet another month becomes a vehicle for trashing the Western Tradition and its values, 2) dividing people up between groups antagonistic toward each other, and  3) downplay or outright erasing the heritage, heroes and history of the United States.  

Since I'm not stupid enough or uneducated enough to buy into such things, and there is no clear consensus on what the whole thing is supposed to be anyway, I think I'll spend my time elswhere.

Note what is missing.  What happened to 'a holiday for all Americans'?

Jesus is not an excuse for cowardice

 I've seen this pop up over the years in different outlets:

It's of some men's choir from the bygone days of Hollywood, but around the time I was a youngster.  The individuals are, back row left to right: Kent McCord and Martin Milner (from the very pro-police show Adam 12 - a childhood favorite of mine), Charles Nelson Reilly (who my mom liked, but knew even then that he walked on the other side of the fence in terms of sexuality), and Ed Asner, not exactly your hard rightwing radical.  Front row is Glenn Ford, next to him Redd Foxx, a racy fellow who obviously was not white, Jack Carter (a comedian I know little about), and the always awesome Ernest Borgnine. Sitting are John Wayne, a well known leftwing communist, and Howard Cosell, known in my day as the most hated man in America (for reasons I never could fathom).

I looked at that and thought about the unthinking diversity of people and ideals in the photo.  They were singing together having a grand old time with much joy and laughter.  Did it dawn on Foxx to chafe at all the racism and white skin around him?  Did Wayne seem offended at Reilly, since if my mom guessed it, the ultra pro-American conservative Wayne couldn't have been in the dark?  Was Asner and his leftwing sensitivities bothered by two actors in a very pro-police television show?  And who is Jack Carter?

These things I wondered as I looked at this photo and couldn't help but smile.   

Then I thought of today, and the growing number of young people who see America from when this picture was taken as an extension of some 400 year old racist Nazi state.  A country awash in bigotry and homophobia and misogyny and racism.  A nationwide gas chamber with hippy music.  Young Americans taught to divide everyone into groups and hate and condemn and hate some more.  Young Americans taught that Americans have ever and always been driven by only the most evil motivations conceivable.

And things like this are compounded by not just the radicals, but ones willing to accept the premise to some degree or another.

I recall deacon and film critic Steven Greydanus, and his laments over the racist undertones of the Rocky franchise.  When pressed, he said the obvious problem was that of Stallone being the heroic white guy beating up on black guys.  When it was pointed out Rocky also beat up on at least one white guy, and was beaten up by black guys, it still didn't matter.  I pointed out that Stallone wrote the part for himself (in one of Hollywood's most beloved rags to riches stories), and he just happened to be white.  If there were no blacks at all in a 1976 boxing movie, do you think people would have said nothing?  Otherwise, what was he to do, give up his dreams for the person with the proper skin color because he had the misfortune of being white?  At that point Deacon Greydanus said other parts could have had the proper skin colors represented.  Perhaps scratch Burgess Meredith with the wrong skin color and replace him with an actor having the right skin color for the part of Mickey.  And this was written by the good deacon unironically. 

Think of that.  A nationally known Catholic deacon and film critic and he couldn't not see divisions, racism, and bigotry simply because of the skin colors in a beloved franchise.  And more than that, he said with almost casual ease that removing a person from a part due to the wrong skin color is a perfectly reasonably solution. 

Is it any wonder that young people today hate each other, our nation, our society, our religious foundations? That they divide everyone into groups and condemn and hate accordingly?  That they judge and perpetually condemn our culture, values, principles, laws or everything and everyone associated with the world around them?  The people insisting they're just trying to get to the truth accept a perspective that would have been asinine fifty years ago.  At least if the picture above has anything to say about the majority opinion back then. 

Yes, it's entirely possible that we live in the most self-righteously judgmental, close minded, intolerant and hypocritical age in many a moon.  We don't even hold back.  Assume the worst, judge without mercy, condemn and eradicate.  Execute judgment and apply slippery standards based on convenience and intolerance in the name of diversity.  

None of these things are acceptable for a person with common sense, much less acceptable for a Christian.  Going along with it, or finding lame reasons to justify it in the name of some Christian virtue, is even worse.  For as often as not, failure to call out the obvious comes from a  lack of courage to stand up to it, while donning a Jesus mask in the hope of making it look good. 

You only thought rape was a non-negotiable

What would Gloria say?

So Law & Order.  I saw this mentioned on a few sites and more or less ignored it.  It's Law & Order after all.  One of those 'issue dramas' that have all the objectivity of a Branch Davidian Bible study. 

But I kept seeing people jump on this, even in a national press outlet or two (like Newsweek), so I thought I would look into it.  Yes, the initial 'hysteria' was correct.  The gist of the episode is that a white woman is raped by a black teen, but is praised for realizing she still has the privilege and the black man, a victim in his own right, will pay for life while she'll be free with her privilege.  

Eventually, the woman's lesbian lover explains she's inconsolable over the racism of our criminal justice system, knowing  that the black man will never get a fair trial.  Because she is white, she realizes that a little therapy on her part - therapy for the whole violently raped thing - will be all she needs. Then back to being okay with her white privilege.  But the victimized black man will forever be a victim of our racist system of racist justice in our racist country. In the end, she does identify the man, but a plea deal is reached and the DA commends the man for taking responsibility for his actions after he apologizes for the little rape thing.   

FWIW, it's the  'she'll more or less get over it with some therapy' that appears to be the source of the outrage.  We have, after all, accepted that all such 'sexual crimes' are unforgivable on this side of heaven.  That to be raped or sexually abused is a life changing, permanent wound that will never truly heal.  Oh, with therapy and counseling you can manage the trauma, but you will carry the scars for life.  But now?  Eh.  Apparently it depends on your skin color. 

The Leftist dichotomy of oppressed versus oppressor is almost the civil religion of 21st Century America.  In the 1970s, there were no real criminals, only victims of our oppressive and unjust society.  Then feminists  said no way. Maybe muggers and mass murderers are victims, but show me a rapist and I'll show you someone who should be branded for life as a sex pervert.  Eventually, any sex crimes were added to the list, and we accepted that there could be a never ending list of sex based crimes that are worthy of a lifetime of being branded human scum.

But since the Obama years, the Left did a hard turn and tweaked that little standard and has now, effectively, made unforgivable sins only apply based on group identity (see the leftwing reaction to the October 7 massacre of Israeli Jews for a non-sex based example).  With almost no pushback, a not insignificant part of our nation - Christian leaders included - have accepted that the importance of all culpability and absolution, and apparently even suffering, derives from one's group identity.    

The Left isn't giving up, as this episode makes clear.  The message is as obvious as you can get it - if you're a white woman raped by a black man, then lying there on your back being raped, you still have the privilege.  Go get some therapy and fuhgeddaboudit.

In 2020, during the BLM protests, my sons were in college.  In one of the college forums, apparently some professor somewhere in Ohio stepped in it.  At the time, the case of Reagan Tokes came up.  She was a beautiful young college girl who was kidnapped and brutally raped and murdered.  The man who allegedly killed her was a convict who should have been behind bars, but owing to the injustices of our system, was put on a dumbed down house arrest style setup shoddily enforced.    

For some reason, that case came up during the peaceful protests of 2020. And the professor - who I cannot remember - said that the word 'rape' should not be used when describing such an action by a black man against a white woman.  Not that it was good what he did to Miss Tokes.  It was horrible.  It was tragic.  But the fact is, she still had the privilege owing to her skin color, even as her last breaths were being choked out of her. 

Let's just say the forum conversations were pretty intense, with almost all expressing outrage at such a notion.  I don't know if the professor ever apologized or not.  There were many things to think of back then.  So universal was the outrage, however, that I didn't really bother with it.  Just some wacked out professor being a modern professor on the internet, and everyone was rightly upset.  All was right with the world. 

But that was so 2020.  Now, we have a major Hollywood production saying basically the same thing.  White women gotta take it because privilege and systemic racist injustice and all.  Group A - you get what you have coming.  Group B?  Anything you do is excusable because of oppression or freedom fighting.  And note, the actress is quite white.   Remember that every totalitarian revolution has to have its fair share of Boxers willing to head off to the glue factory for the cause. 

If you think it won't get worse, consider the LGBTQ community and Chik fil A.  Over a decade ago, some local politicians in Boston and Chicago floated banning the restaurant from their jurisdictions because of the owner's views on homosexuality.  Yet LGBTQ activists roared in protest.  No way.  That's not what they are about!   I remember even the Huffpost jumped up and down and threw a yellow flag on the idea of government actors punishing a business because of religious beliefs.  

A decade later, however, and it was LGBTQ protesters calling for various agencies, government or otherwise, to ban. punish, censor or in any way ruin  Chik fil A over its previous owner's beliefs (and with plenty of the national press's help by way of being free advertisers for Popeye's Chicken, CfA's chief competitor).  And what of those lofty principles of religious freedom only a few years earlier?  The joy of progress.  That was so yesterday's principles.   

Things progress and devolve in history.  If you think this development regarding white women and rape will be confined to a TV show, think again.  Four years ago the overwhelming response to a professor's notion that white women can't be "raped" by black men, because the white woman still has the power, was overwhelming outrage from all sides that I saw.  Now it's Hollywood getting in on the act and saying 'not so fast'. In another dozen years, white women being told to deal with it if they're raped by a black man might just be the nicest thing that will apply to the situation.

I'm sorry my racism was revealed

Is the gist of this story about the racism of Boston's mayor being exposed.  Really.  She's not saying she's sorry they wanted a Christmas party for only non-whites.  She's just sorry the email went out to white people.  

The whole leftwing idea that the Nazis weren't necessarily bad people, they just race hated and industrially mass murdered all the wrong people for the wrong reasons is stunning to behold.  But because the Left now holds the crown, scepter and orb of our nation, there ain't much we can do about it.

Let's face it, if a white Republican sent a similar email excluding non-whites, the mainstream outlets would relocate their newsrooms to outside that mayor's office for the next week.  As it is, except for the Wall Street Journal and some typically right leaning news outlets like The Post, I found nothing in any MSM outlets about this story. 

Which is why the modern news media is about as worthless as alcohol free whisky.  But more sinisterly, clearly it is about advancing agendas and ignoring inconvenient evils, no matter who is hurt or how.  Which is the next step before tyranny, when these things are happening and there is nothing you can do. 

 

In which we learn about the Holocaust and the modern Left

And discover that with the modern Left, the Holocaust isn't necessarily a bad thing as much as it's a convenient thing.  

Per this Reuters story, it turns out the Harvard faculty is rallying around their president.  Apparently Harvard alums are doing the same.  This is in the wake of the revealing, but not surprising, testimony she and two others gave about antisemitism on campus.

It's really not difficult.  The Left is about the destruction of the Western Tradition.  I won't add Christian to that because it has effectively ended the 2000 year old Christian era.  We are heading full speed to a pre-Christian pagan world with secular foundations, and seem happy for that direction we are going. 

But whatever can be used to toppled the West matters - as long as it can be used to topple the West.  And that means taking anything, no matter how trivial, and turning it into the Death Star blowing up Alderaan.  You see, the point isn't discussions about free speech on campus we're suddenly hearing about.  Nor is it how these various presidents or other representatives of the universities reacted to the naked calls for mass murdering Israeli Jews (with a fair dose of antisemitism aimed at American Jews).  It isn't even the response of those who are suddenly embracing the idea that freedom of speech, rather than worrying about calls for genocide, is all that matters.

The issue is that the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, a global wave of support for it and calling for more slaughter of Jews, and the continued alliance with those who would support such slaughter rather than condemning it, comes only a couple of weeks after news broke across the national press that a high school football coach had to resign.  Why?  Because some of the play calling connected to Blitz plays (common in football) were seen by a largely Jewish high school as too close to terminology associated with Nazi Germany.  So that man, a man dedicated to coaching and educating and perhaps mentoring youth in our present age, was forced to quit.  I can remember the multiple stories, and how many (Sam Rocha, I'm looking at you) jumped on the story. 

But look at the caution now.  Look at the appeals to nuance.  Observe the careful analysis about just what we're looking at, how we should look at it, and endless wrangling over freedom, justice, Israeli colonialism, cabbage and kings and anything under the sun rather than clear and unequivocal condemnation of what we have seen and heard since October 7th. 

And a month before that football coach story, we were treated for almost a week of news stories reminding us that this is the sixth anniversary of the terror, the horror, that closest thing to American death camps - the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville  No nuance there.  It was horrible, racist, fascist, to be hated and condemned.  We won't even discuss the outrage over Elon Musk posting a comment suggesting Jews speak badly of whites in ways they wouldn't want applied to Jewish people, or what Kanye West said that unleashed hellfire and fury without mercy.  Compare those reactions to the death by a thousand trivialities we're seeing now connected to the Hamas attack and those who continue to support cheer it on. 

Somewhere along the line the Left emerged as the ideological equivalent of Calvinball.   It has no core values, principles, truths, morals, ethics, nothing. It seeks the utter destruction of the Western Democratic tradition and the worldview of the Christian religion.  To that end it will make a football coach's play calling proof of all the antisemitic Nazi race hate in Western history, while looking at the slaughter of 1400 Jews and calls for more such slaughter, and suddenly want to engage in reasoned and open debate with respect and understanding because of the importance of free speech. 

Remember what my son said about debating modern liberalism.  It's like playing a boardgame with someone while they throw pots and pans at you.  That's about right.  It's not just cheating.  It's saying it gets seven points for that touchdown it scored no matter what inning I think it is or I'm a fascist who should be banned from the game.  You can't deal with something like that rationally or with any semblance of goodwill.  Because to recap: There is one ultimate goal with the Left, and anything - including calls for the genocidal slaughter of Jews - is dealt with only on a case by case basis as it hinders or benefits that goal.  Think long and hard on that one. 

Sad Truth

 

In case you missed it, a week or so ago, Carron Phillips, a broadcaster working for an outlet called Deadspin, saw a picture of this 9 year old in profile, showing only the blackened side of his face.  Immediately he went on a tirade, yelling blackface, racism, the Death Star blows up Alderaan, the usual for modern social activism.  He demanded the NFL speak out against this naked display of racism. 

The parents of the child, immediately beset with threats and insults and personal attacks against them and their son, responded that Mr. Phillips missed the full picture.  He's merely wearing the colors of the team.  Plus, they themselves are Native American. 

That did no good, and the brave Mr. Phillips hunkered down, screaming trauma and terror upon minority groups everywhere.  Soon Native American activists were asked their opinions.  Some supported the family, others distanced themselves, warning against cultural appropriation.  Still others outright disavowed the family altogether. 

Meanwhile fans became divided, with many expressing anger at the family for such a racist costume, while others defended him, noting the colors are the team colors, and often seen in people who dress up for the team.  While others said it was a subtle dig, since there has been pressure against the Chiefs because 21st Century America. 

And all over a nine year old in a costume.  That's the embarrassingly low status we've been reduced to as a society.  This is why the 9/11 Attacks were everything Japan had hoped Pearl Harbor would be but wasn't.  Because the generation that Japan attacked realized the ones who did this were the enemy:

While our generation, and our courageous and bold societal leaders, think the one who does this is the enemy: 

That sound you hear is our freedoms leaving the room

So I was working here on some bills and banking, with the local news on in the background.  Suddenly I heard a story - a long story - that some trustee in a local township is being called upon to be fired.  That's because he said a 'racial slur' when talking about Juneteenth.  

What caught me, other than the reporters camped out near the town hall like they were waiting for the white smoke, was an interview with a local representative of the NAACP.  She went completely terminator on the fellow, at one point saying his neighborhood should be made aware of this and should not tolerate him living anywhere near them. 

What?  Over a racial slur?  Over a word?  A single word?  And you say the communal equivalent of tar, feather and exile?  What happened to that lazy, crazy,  hazy liberalism I grew up with that said you can't ever judge? Rehabilitate and forgive, that's the ticket.  When exactly did that liberalism die?  But of course, it's more serious than a woman donning her Salem apparel when it comes to the wrong people saying the wrong things.  That is, he wasn't a black trustee nor was he Quentin Tarantino.  In those cases it would be fine.  

A friend of mine who is a Presbyterian minster, and no slouch as a historian, once told me that when you live in a free country like ours, tyranny is like a vampire.  You have to invite it in.  Which is what we're seeing with our catastrophic levels of divisions and group identity.  Hence the NAACP woman who apparently feels a single misstep is enough to be forever exiled into the outer darkness and loathed by entire communities.  

I wonder if she would like that standard applied to her. If she gets her wish with this fellow, I have no doubt she'll have her chance down the road.  Our Founding Fathers were smart enough to grasp that little fact of history that so many today are strangely forgetting. 

Because of racism

 This:

There are only four athletes who are billionaires, all of them black Americans.  It becomes more and more difficult to convince sane and thinking people that we are a Jim Crow nation of gas chambers and death camps and universal racism and oppression of minorities.  Remember, as my oldest son observed, the BLM movement didn't begin until after the reelection of our first black president.  That alone should give clues about what we're seeing. 

Beyond the obvious narrative breaker of non-white, non-Western and non-conservative protesters and activists praising Hamas and calling for the slaughter of Israeli Jews, we have this.  With more and more black multi-zillionaire superstars dominating various sports and professional positions, it gets difficult to convince poor, working class, low income whites that they nonetheless have the privilege owing to their skin color.

Not that everyone needs convincing of course.  Only enough.  And Catholics alone have shone we're equal to the task when it comes to providing people who will believe and embrace such bilge, no matter how much evidence is stacked against it. 

People like Dawn Eden and The Atlantic's Graeme Wood continue to miss the point

 Here:

Here is the article she references.

The problem isn't that Palestinians, pro-Palestinian protesters, leftists, and various anti-white, anti-Western activists are saying there is a moral equivalency between Israel's IDF and  Hamas.  The problem is they're saying there is no moral equivalency because Israel and IDL are the only bad guys.  By virtue of the Left's slick 'Sanctified Oppressed Class v. Unforgivable Oppressor Class' template, Israel is the oppressor.  Therefore, Hamas is merely a bunch of rough around the edges freedom fighters for the blessed oppressed.  Because for the Left, as part of its anti-Western strategy, to be the Oppressor means you deserve nothing that you have and everything you'll get.  And anything connected to the Western Tradition is always the Oppressor.  

It's not hard to see in Mr. Wood's archives that he drinks deeply from the 'Bad West and its fascist defenders' well that makes such idiotic narratives possible.  Same with Ms. Eden.  Her alliance with those dividing the world between the heroic oppressed and the fascist loving cheerleaders of the Oppressors has become more obvious with each passing month.

But now Israel and all those Israeli Jews are the establishment Oppressors.  They are the baddies. Jews in America might still be worth something when it comes to trotting out endless reminders of antisemitism in Europe and America or the Christian Church.  But in Israel?  Not so much.  And as the Left throws out old Western ideals of freedom of speech, religious liberty, forgiveness, reconciliation and tolerance, we see what happens next.  The oppressor has got to go one way or another, along with anyone defending the Oppressor in any way - and that includes Jews.  

So I ask them - what the hell did they expect?  We've had about three generations of this little dichotomy being pounded into the heads of our youth.  That is, the world divided into the Oppressed versus the Oppressors.  By the time my kids were in school, that was the canvas upon which their world was painted.  There was still some lag over from the past.  For instance, they still learned that we need to become a color blind society, to put race behind us, and never, ever judge based on skin color no matter what.  But much of the 'Unforgivable Oppressing West, Otherwise Beautiful Oppressed' narrative was in full swing.  Along with celebrating the growing hatred, merciless condemnation, calls for the erasing and extermination of reprobate sinners and deplorables and anyone else forever damned for the label Oppressor. 

In addition, since Covid and the 2020 BLM riots, we've seen yet another old liberal mantra die and die fast.  That is, the much tired out and endlessly repeated claim that 'violence is never the answer.'  Well, since 2020, it's become a damn good answer, if you're on the side of the Oppressed against the Oppressor. 

And as these things pile up - divide the world, no mercy for the villains, all defining sins of the oppressors, erase the irredeemable, darn right violence against the oppressor establishment - you should be able to do the basic math.  Even now, while the pro-Hamas/anti-Israel side has polished its act up a bit and ditched the 'gas the Jews' chants (though I'm still seeing signs that read "Any means necessary"), the template meant to destroy the West is ironclad.  That is, Israel is part of the West, it is therefore the irredeemable Oppressor, therefore it must go the way of the Confederate flag, the Columbus Statue, the Robert E. Lee monument, the Jefferson memorial, and anything of the Oppressor that can't be cleansed of its unforgivable sins.

People like Dawn Eden, or any Jewish liberals today, have sown the wind, and they are only now beginning to realize that the whirlwind is around the corner.  Some are beginning to wake up, but what that means I don't know.  Will they put the brakes on and begin questioning this thing with which they've aligned for so many years?  Will they think if they can just make them stop calling for killing Jews this time, it will fix things for good?  I don't know.  The infinite capacity for humans to be stupid is one of our most endearing qualities.  

Dawn Eden gets schooled

About something I wrote on many moons ago.  That is, the idea that for the Left there is no humanity, only demographic groups.  And your value, your believability, your suffering, your place on the pyramid depends on if your demographic group is the group du jour or not.  Which means is it the one, at this moment, most able to shoot holes in the heritage of the Western Tradition?  I wrote about this little development within the Left some years ago.  You can read it here. 

Ms. Eden appears shocked that so many would accuse Israel of the hospital bombing.  Heck, I'm shocked so few did.  Jews are important for trotting out endless stories of antisemitism and Jewish hate throughout Western and American history.  Ms. Eden herself has embarked on a crusade to focus on antisemitism in the Church, in our leaders, in our forebears, in anyone White, Christian, preferably male.  To the Left, people like Ms. Eden, who are willing to keep the focus the West's sins, are the good Jews.  Just like blacks who go all BLM or radical anti-patriarchal feminists.  Anyone who helps tear down the foundations of the Christian Western Democratic tradition is A-OK. 

Ah, but sticky point.  Israel is seen as a love child of that vile imperialistic, colonizing West.  In the minds of a growing number on the Left, the State of Israel is as bad as the Nazi Confederacy.  Plus, being not Western means innocent, pure, virtuous, victim.  Hence even our president is careful to say 'Bad boys you Hamas people' and insist Palestinians are not the problem.  Despite Palestinian protests at best fully supporting and sanctioning what Hamas has done.  At worst, they have made it clear they want to see more of it, with at least a couple such protests sporting signs along the lines of 'gas the Jews.'  How many times that happened I don't know.  The press has quickly stopped mentioning such things. Compare that to Charlottesville, which is still trotted out by the press at least every couple months as proof that defenders of America's heritage equal White Nationalist. 

Of course it isn't as easy as 'bad Hamas, bad Israel, beautiful Palestinians'.  A sane non-21st Century thinker would realize this taps into that ages old rift between Arabs and Jews that saw its own brand of bigotry and racism long before Bismarck decided to make Germany a thing.  Instead, it's an inconvenient challenge to the narrative that, as bad as Hamas is, Israel and everyone in it is worse  because of the evil West. 

That is part of the overall narrative that Ms. Eden clearly accepts.  If not about Israel, then about the unique and singular evils of anything west of the Urals.  Despite accepting these narratives, she appears shocked that they are applied even when you think they shouldn't be.  Like when more Jews were killed in a single day than any time since the Holocaust, yet let's just have a polite discussion and not jump to conclusions.  Unless it's assuming Israel is the bad guy of course.  If you live by the leftwing sword, be prepared to die by it when you or what you cherish is no longer convenient. 

BTW, I was going to post a photo from one of the protests where the horrible 'gas the Jews' signs were held up.  You know what?  I searched hundreds of images in various news outlets and on Google, and could find none.  The closest I came to anything suggesting it happened at all was this:

I should have copied the pictures when I saw them.  Our ministry of censorship and propaganda at work.  

Again Ms. Eden, get used to it.  You matter when your various group identities can bring down the Western tradition, including its democratic and Judeo-Christian roots.  As long as you do that, you're good.  Most valuable player and all.  But the minute you don't, as we see here, people who are about aiding in the destruction of the West will be given carte blanche over your interests in a fast heartbeat.  If they chant 'gas the Jews', we'll do our best to  insist to cover our ears and just move on.  And we'll do it because you have no more worth for the Left as a Jewish woman than you would as a woman opposing sharing the bathroom with Trans men, or if you were black, being a black conservative.  It's the side you've chosen.  Get used to it. 

UPDATE: 

Wow.  So I was informed that the comments at the link to Mark's blog tell the tale:

Note that.  Nothing at all about the Palestinians who chanted support for Hamas, or called for more of what Hamas gave.  We won't even discuss the explicit calls in pro-Palestine rallies for more slaughter because the victims were Jewish.  Just ignore the slaughter and the hatred of Jews, and attack Trump/MAGA.  All of this is as good as saying it's not the slaughter of Jews we mind so much, but that their slaughter can be exploited to attack our hated political enemies.  

This is the result of that evil tendency of only caring about human misery when it can be exploited that I've been pounding the pulpit about all these years.  And it isn't just at Mark's site.  Send me examples of politicians, pundits, journalists or even Christian leaders who have called out those Palestinians who cheered on the slaughter and demonstrated hatred of Jews, as opposed to simply framing it as 'bad Israel/bad Hamas/beautiful Palestinians.'  The narrative is already that deep. 

BTW, the video Mark links to is an Al Jazeera affiliated video that explains it's only MAGA Trump supporters who are a threat to Jews.  In a sane world that is the last thing I'd link to after the horrific slaughter of innocent Israeli Jews.  But sanity is one of the first casualties of the anti-Western Left. 

A great day for justice

Back in the pre-Covid days of BLM, when the Left/Press was trying to lay down the battle lines in which any white can only act due to racism, and anything that impacts any African American is due to racism, young Shannon Phillips became a media target.  She was a Starbucks manager who did what most I've known who work in such establishments do, and that's ask two non-paying customers who were using the facilities to pay or leave.  Problem?  The two were black.

Of course charges of Nazi collaboration and KKK membership immediately flew like starlings.  Starbucks acted like they never heard of such a policy. The press dove into Ms. Phillips' life and found any and all dirt they could to paint her as the discount Goebbels she was. 

Eventually, a year or so later, I saw on a small story behind the grocery ads that Starbucks finally admitted she merely followed store policy.  A policy they proudly announced would be eliminated.  Were there any major nationwide apologies for the false accusations based on her skin color? 

Eh.  She was white.  Who cares.  You'd think then Starbucks would have rushed in and tried to make amends.  Apparently it didn't. She sued.  I'm not a fan of frivolous lawsuits.  But if she was any color and fired for her color, I'd support the lawsuit.  Including her being white.

Turns out, a jury agreed. Starbucks canned her because she was white.  Her settlement, at least at this point, is in the millions.  How that will work I don't know.  It's just nice to see we live in a country where, even when racism is promoted by our best and brightest, the law sometimes kicks in and makes it right. It makes me think of an old political science professor I had in college.  He said the Founding Fathers never promised a country that would never do wrong.  They promised a nation that would be able to fix the wrongs when they were done.  

Says middle aged white dude

Ever since John Lennon sat in his multi-million dollar English estate with a custom decorated Rolls-Royce in the driveway and asked the world to imagine no possessions, proxy martyrdom has been all the rage.  What is proxy martyrdom?  That's my term for people willing to latch on to a righteous cause that demands sacrifice from anyone other than the people latching on to that righteous cause.  Consider wealthy celebrities flying in their private jets to the latest Climate Change conference. Or a rich and famous musician calling for a world with no possessions from the midst of his mansion.  Or anything to do with population control. Has anyone ever sacrificed for the cause of thinning the human herds? 

In fact, much of our modern activism is rather light on self-sacrifice while being heavy on self-righteousness.  Like the bold hero above.  And no, going out and looting, stealing televisions and laptops does not count as sacrifice.  

It is worth noting that the cause he is advocating is becoming common.  There is a growing number of activists calling for things like 'hire fewer white people', or 'don't hire white men' or 'don't this or that with this or that group.'  Often it is called for by people in those very groups.  For example, notice when white liberals beseech organizations to hire fewer people who look like them.  In many cases, those same white liberals have noticeably white hair.  Meaning their careers are comfortably in the rear view mirrors.  Whatever hiring changes come as a result of their pleas might impact millions of white people, especially young white people, but it won't impact them.  Proxy martyrs. 

The best way to approach this is to ask yourself just what they sacrificed when you see someone bravely facing the applause over something like antiracism, or gender, or causes dealing with sex, or climate change, or anything for that matter.  Ask yourself if anyone will have to sacrifice.  Then ask if the individual banging the drum for the cause is one who has, or will, have to sacrifice for the cause.  If there are people who might have to pay a price for the cause, but it's not the one boasting about supporting the cause, then it's best to walk away and ignore.  Find a real hero, because it ain't them. 

What anti-racism should look like

 Here:

Anti-racism, like social justice, marriage equality, or reproductive health, is a good thing. Anti-racism is good.  So is social justice.  Marriage equality could be good, too.  Reproductive health.  Who would be against it?

But we all know these are political buzz phrases used by the Left to mean, well, what the Left says they mean on any given day:  Anti-white racism, Marxist inspired leftwing political activism, sexual amorality, and pro-abortion advocacy.  Mantras that must be repeated or be deemed an enemy of the Left. 

In the video above, however, we have a wonderful explanation for why the discrimination against whites, the judgementalism against whites, the condemnation of whites simply for being white, all promoted in the name of anti-racism, is every bit as racist as anything the Nazis pulled in the 1930s.  What the young man says here is authentic anti-racism, and the type that should be embraced every bit as much as we would embrace anti-Nazism.  Sadly, that is not the case among far too many, including those who otherwise see this for what it is.  

Let's face it.  There is little to suggest that those embracing this latest incarnation of racism today would have done any different in the Jim Crow South or Germany in the 30s and 40s.  Sorry, but that's the fact of the matter.  It takes nothing to stand up to the sins of the past, but sometimes everything to stand up to the sins of the present.  Failure to stand up against the sins of the powerful today is probably all the proof you need to know you would have failed the same way in the past.  

Bonus points, by the way, for watching the segment of the video showing various racist screeds that include white people, most likely liberal white people.  The white liberal sanctification of demographic self hate and masochism is a virtue that is unique among the woes of humanity, I will say that.  I've not found its parallel in history.  Which is why, perhaps, it is so effective and so devastating. 

Because nobody tells black American racists or Asian American racists that it's fine to be a racist if it's directed at white people more loudly than white liberals.  Which makes me think of this:

“And Jesus said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea”    Luke 17.1-2a

Ethnic scrubbing

Is simply ethnic cleansing writ small.  John C. Wright has another absurd case in the growing 'can we get rid of the white people?' movement among the Left.  As Mr. Wright points out, a big part of this is to provoke a racist reaction.  Yes, the Left can label any reaction racist, and it will.  But the big game trophy is in finding someone who reacts in a legitimately racist way - hence reinforcing the narrative.  We call this a type of self-fulfilling prophecy. 

It reminds me of a story a week or two ago that white supremacy is on the rise in the US.  That was a couple weeks after a story on the same local channel in which some professor explained why it's absolutely fine when a university segregates based on skin color, or roles in movies are now decided based upon which skin colors to exclude (I think in reaction to the new Oscars requirements).  I'll leave you figure which skin colors were being discussed.

Of course very few speak out against this (see the charge of racism above), leaving young up and coming white Americans  more than clear about their future prospects.  Those who are white who push this racial discrimination usually sport gray hair with their own careers safely in the rear view mirrors. Or they are individuals in positions where they, or they assume their posterity, won't be the ones singled out for dismissal owing to their skin color.

All in all, nothing new.  Racism, contrary to popular narrative, is not a white person's sin, a conservative person's sin, a MAGA person's sin, a Western Civilization sin.  It's found where two or more people tend to gather.  And, as we see in front of our eyes, it has a universal appeal.  So universal that a form of racism unknown in the West - against whites - is now as common as Jim Crow was in the south a hundred years ago.  That racism was based on generations and even centuries of racist thinking.  Yet how fast has the current racism been embraced today?  And most institutions and national leaders (and religious leaders) stand by and let it happen - or join in.

With each passing day we have less and less reason to think we can judge previous generations.  After all, in doing so we are becoming the worst of those generations without the good.  A toxic combination. 

The Righteous Gentiles of Juneteenth

 Are, like the Righteous Gentiles of the Civil Rights Movement, pretty much non-existent. 

Something missing here

You know who the Righteous Gentiles are.  They are those non-Jews who risked, and at times lost, their lives trying to rescue Jewish victims from the clutches of the Nazis.  Throughout the world in Jewish circles, they are held in the highest esteem.  There are memorials, tributes and celebrations of them across the board.  For the Jewish community, especially the survivors of the Holocaust, they were always seen as the heroes they were.

I notice, however, that in our modern Civil Rights era, there are no 'Righteous Gentiles'.  There are no white people who ever seemed to contribute to the aid of black Americans.  Tributes for civil rights activists are almost always centered on African Americans.  Any mention at all about anyone non-black American is glossed over.  

Something about that bothers me.  Like Juneteenth.  The attempt, of course, is to eventually push this to replace July 4th. That wouldn't be a problem if it was celebrating what it was: Basically the government did good by sending Union troops down to Texas to enforce the liberation of the remaining slaves.  But that's not how it's portrayed.  Like the Google image above, apparently the black Americans of the day magically freed themselves and that's why we celebrate.

Some years ago, I watched on our streaming service a documentary about the making of the movie Harriet. Obviously it was about Harriet Tubman, apparently focusing on her work within the Underground Railroad.  Now to be clear, I never saw the movie and perhaps the movie itself is no problem.  But if the documentary was to be believed, you'd never know white people had anything to do with the Underground Railroad.  To watch the documentary, the only role white people played were those whites hunting down runaway slaves or betraying them.  

That's a big problem I have with the civil rights movement today. Something doesn't go down well when I notice that there is a purposeful attempt to ignore, downplay or deny any positive roles played by white people in the history of our country where the fight for civil rights is concerned.  When I see things like that, I imagine we aren't supposed to be educated about these events.  Rather they are to be exploited for other, unmentioned, agendas. 

BTW, an excellent example is this NPR piece.  Under the photo, it mentions the arrival of the Union Troops on June 19.  That is it. Nothing else in the piece alludes to the actual event or who was involved.  In fact, it seems to go out of its way to explain why Juneteenth is not at all a celebration of the actual historical event which led to Juneteenth: 

"We are not celebrating the history of Juneteenth. We are celebrating the symbolism of Juneteenth," said Leslie Wilson, professor of history at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Because to do so would necessitate celebrating the individuals involved, and goodness knows we can't have that.  Or as this piece in McPaper makes clear: White people have no business being included on images for Juneteenth, which isn't only about black people. 

Heh.  If it wasn't based on racism and the desire to destroy Christian Western civilization and its virtues of liberty, equality, and life, it would be funny.  Everyone runs about screaming 'it ain't about black people' and then they turn about and insist it's for black people.  That's literally where we are as a country.  They can say opposing things in the same breath and it's true or you're a racist.  

“"Juneteenth GVL would like to apologize to the community for the presence of non-black faces on two flags representing Juneteenth. We acknowledge this mistake having been made and will correct the error quickly.”

Always remember

Young people today are taught that when they see this:

They should think this:

My eldest son said it best, after one of his college history classes.  The age old question - how could Germans do such a thing, in reference to Nazi Germany - has finally been answered.  How could Germans do such a thing?  Easy.  They were white Europeans.  That's what white Europeans do.  He said that after such a discussion in his class.  

I consider that when I see something like this pop up:

Note there is no reason for the 'guy' to be described as white.  The joke works fine without it.  Yet it is mentioned.  Because 'white' increasingly is a euphuism for racist.  Back in the day if you gratuitously mentioned someone was black for no reason, or Jewish, or any such identifier, it was said to be evidence of your racist thinking.  Yet think how often today 'white' is mentioned, always pejoratively, and often when there is no reason to mention it. 

And while this development has been touted by white liberals for decades, it's not hard to see that a growing number non-white individuals are warming up to the trend.  Just where those white liberals fit into this and its logical ramifications I can't say.  I just know bad and dangerous trends when I see them.  That comes from studying history most of my life.